Why don't Canon and Nikon have Sensor Stabilization?

Ksanti

Ksanti

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I've been wondering about this, because it would make a great deal of sense given it's a fairly big selling point for Sony and Pentax DSLRs...

I don't think it would hurt VR lens sales that much either, given (I assume) the benefit can add up of having two VR systems?

I know VR doesn't help sport/action beyond panning shots, but that's no reason to not put it in? With all these fairly minor upgrades, I'd have expected to see SSM etc. in the Big Two by now?
 
scottthehat said:
you can only use one or the other at one time. not noticed any real difference in them both, except you can see it working when its in lens.
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Why would this be the case? Perhaps a little more strain on the CPU, but surely the higher-end CPU's could easily accommodate that?

It's not so much the difference between the two systems in terms of performance, but just that when it's in-body, it's going to work out cheaper for the most part, and would make low-light so much easier?

I don't know too much about the technology behind it all, but it just seems odd for them not to have it?
 
Not sure about Canon, but Nikon claim that lens vr can be tuned to give optimum effect for each (model of) lens and that this gives better results than sensor stabilisation.

It doesn't make any sense to try to use both types as the software algorithms that predict where the sensor/lens element needs to go next would have to take into consideration what the other part is going to do. Time consuming and fraught with potential errors with very small gains even when (if ever) it is right.

From a reliability viewpoint I would think that moving the sensor rapidly up/down/diagonally is likely to speed up it's failure, or failure of the electrical connections to the circuit board. These connections would have to be very flexible to enable the stabilisation system to function unhindered.
 
From what I've read the pros and cons of in body v in lens are still being argued about on internet forums so there can't be too much in it or one side would have admitted defeat by now.

I can see the advantage of in body IS as you see it working but one day mirrors will be no more and we'll have electronic viewfinders so I suppose the IS action will then be visible for in body IS systems too?

I've not read of any great number of cameras with in body IS going faulty so I'd guess that it isn't a big reliability worry. As for optimising IS to the lens, well the camera knows what lens is fitted so the optimum settings could be programmed in and auto selected for in body IS, I guess.

I suspect that part of the reason that Canon and Nikon don't have in body IS is that they make money from selling IS lenses and may well therefore be very reluctant to go to an in body system. Maybe they never will.

One thing for sure, if I was just starting now and didn't have a bag full of Canon lenses I'd be buying a camera with in body IS as most of the lenses I have now are just not available with IS.
 
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Canikon had in-lens stabilisation pre-digital and have stuck with it. In-body and in-lens systems are not compatible.

The advantage is that it's taylored to individual lenses, which certainly makes a difference with very long lenses. And the benefit of a stabilised viewfinder is very useful with longer focal lengths.

It doesn't seem to add significant cost. The very few lenses of similar spec that available with and without stabilisation (eg Canon 70-200L) where there is a price difference, are not the same lenses at all, either optically or mechanically.

It would be nice to have in-body and be able to add stabilisation to lenses that currenty are not available with IS or VR. Pretty much all primes below about 200mm.
 
If they were so adamant that their in-lens stabilisation is good enough, why do none of their primes have them? To get good lenses with IS you're looking at over £1000 per lens in most cases, and I can't afford that which is why I try to shoot primes - with the low-light advantage of primes, leaving out IS seems kind of ridiculous, at least on the newer lenses.
 
It does appear that lenses with the same focal range/f ratio with IS have a 2x price over their non IS "cheap" lens (i.e. lenses that are < £1000 in their non-IS versions - think 70-200 f4 & F2.8 and 100mm 2.8 macro). At a guess getting IS AND quick f ratios is quite difficult and this is what most people want (how often have you seen the 70-200 f4 IS vs 2.8 non-IS debate?). The adder cost for the longer, lower fstop lenses is probably just a minimal amount compared to the cost of the lens. That and they can charge more for the higher performance lenses as some people will pay for them. I've not seen the outputs of in-body IS, but is it really as good as in-lens IS?
 
Ksanti said:
If they were so adamant that their in-lens stabilisation is good enough, why do none of their primes have them?
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Erm?

From memory, primes with

Canon EF 200mm f2.0 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 300mm f4 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 500mm f4 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 600mm f4 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 800mm f5.6 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 500mm f4 L IS II USM Lens
Canon EF 600mm f4 L IS II USM Lens
Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L IS II USM Lens
Canon EF 300mm f2.8 L IS II USM Lens
 
In lens IS is always going to be better as the system can be optimised for each lens as already said
An example of this which would never be done in the body is the Canon 100mm L IS Macro
This also compensates for vertical and horizontal shifts in the position of the lens as well as changes in the angle the lens which existing systems do
this is an amazing lens which gives 2 stop IS at macro distances which has never been done before.
Sounds like an advert for Canon :D but this would never be done on all a manufacturers bodies just for the relatively few people who shoot macro
pete
 
Having shot with Sony and Canon DSLRs and a variety of lenses, my experience is that in lens stabilisation is much more effective than in body systems for longer lenses, but in body is more convenient for short lenses. But less necessary...if I'm shooting a gig indoors I need to capture action, which no form of is assists with. As far as the original question goes, Sony users have tried this and the two systems don't work together.
 
manualfocus-g said:
Sony users have tried this and the two systems don't work together.
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I think the same goes for m4/3rd users with Panasonic lenses on Olympus bodies..

I have used a variety of systems and effectiveness aside one thing I have noticed(well I think I have) between in body and in lens is in lens stabalizes at (pre)focus whereas in body stabalizes during shot... I dont know whether this means you get a little lag with in body or not or whether it is just the difference in sound when IS on, but it gives the impression you get a slight lag.


EDIT:just did quick test with body IS, doesnt seem to be any difference in shot speed IS on/off but as I say the difference in sound gives the impression of taking longer.
 
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Byker28i said:
Erm?

From memory, primes with

Canon EF 200mm f2.0 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 300mm f4 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 500mm f4 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 600mm f4 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 800mm f5.6 L IS USM Lens
Canon EF 500mm f4 L IS II USM Lens
Canon EF 600mm f4 L IS II USM Lens
Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L IS II USM Lens
Canon EF 300mm f2.8 L IS II USM Lens
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All of those cost well over a £1,000 though. Does a 50mm prime need IS though? If the nifty fifty had it the price and weight would more than likely increase to a point where it might not be great value any more. As for in body vs lens when Canon and Nikon improve their IS/VR do Sony/Pentax do the same with their in body IS?
 
Laudrup said:
Does a 50mm prime need IS though?
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I'd be more than happy to replace my 35mm and 85mm primes with IS versions - anything which assists with ensuring sharp pictures is a plus in my book!
 
In lens IS/VR/OS stabilises the viewfinder as well, quite beneficial.
 
Canon can make more money out of us if they have it in the lenses individually :p
 
LCPete said:
In lens IS is always going to be better as the system can be optimised for each lens as already said
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But the camera knows what lens is connected as they talk to each other so an in body IS system, or lens, could be preprogrammed with the optimum settings for each lens.

Also as cameras evolve IMVHO it's only a matter of time before moving mechanical mirrors and their associated optical viewfinders are replaced with other devices and I presume it'll then be possible to display to the user what the stabilisation system is doing.

Where are the stabilised wide angles in the 10-20mm range? Where are the 20mm, 30mm and 50mm fast primes?
 
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woof woof said:
Where are the stabilised wide angles in the 10-20mm range?
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Generally don't need them as they tend to be landscape shots and are either hand held in good light or composed with a tripod.

woof woof said:
Where are the 20mm, 30mm and 50mm fast primes?
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Canon do a 24 1.4L, 35 1.4L and 50mm 1.2L. How fast do you want???
 
woof woof said:
But the camera knows what lens is connected as they talk to each other so an in body IS system, or lens, could be preprogrammed with the optimum settings for each lens.
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But then if a new lens is brought out, you have a load of cameras that don't know how to get the best out of it.

woof woof said:
Also as cameras evolve IMVHO it's only a matter of time before moving mechanical mirrors and their associated optical viewfinders are replaced with other devices and I presume it'll then be possible to display to the user what the stabilisation system is doing.
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That may be so, but it isn't the case now, so I have no way of benefiting from it.
 
Laudrup said:
Does a 50mm prime need IS though?
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It depends on circumstances - my A200 has relatively poor handling of higher ISO, so indoors without flash the in-body stabilisation means I can hand-hold at lower shutter speeds (rather than increasing the ISO to get a faster shutter speed).

As far as I can see, for longer lenses the 'optimisation' benefit may be a case for in-lens, the stabilised viewfinder certainly sounds to be a benefit which suggest it is 'better'.
For shorter lenses, the cost and weight advantage of in-body appear to suggest in-body is better.

Which for me indicates that having in-body stabilisation, which automatically turns off (and locks the sensor) if a lens with IS is fitted would be the best all round.
 
arad85 said:
Generally don't need them as they tend to be landscape shots and are either hand held in good light or composed with a tripod.

Canon do a 24 1.4L, 35 1.4L and 50mm 1.2L. How fast do you want???
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I'd like to use all my lenses as I see fit rather than conform to cliche, wide lenses are for more than landscape use on a tripod.

I think you missed my point about fast lenses. I have several and as far as I know none are available with IS.
 
arad85 said:
But then if a new lens is brought out, you have a load of cameras that don't know how to get the best out of it.

That may be so, but it isn't the case now, so I have no way of benefiting from it.
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People update firmware all the time and camera body firmware wouldn't be a problem if the info could be built into the lens.

As for the future... it's coming and it'll be interesting to see if Canon and Nikon are still producing cameras with mechanical mechanisms to move a mirror and seporate optical paths when everyone else has moved on.

In body IS would be lovely, Today. I'd love my fast lenses to benafit from an in body system.
 
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arad85 said:
But then if a new lens is brought out, you have a load of cameras that don't know how to get the best out of it.
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From a design standpoint, the way round this is to hold the stabilisation parameters in the lens rom - just like the other lens data the camera uses. You would also need a 'default' set in the body for any (older) lenses which did not have this data.
 
James Wright said:
Why does it need it more to the point?
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If you are shooting in low light the benefit of IS should be perfectly obvious...

You can use a lower ISO setting and you'll have better control over DoF as you might not have to use the widest aperture available.

As mp counts increase and people pixel peep more any minute issue is going to be ever more obvious and IS of any sort can only help in some circumstances. The fact that some lenses simply are not available with IS can only limit the opportunities for photographers.

All IMVHO of course.
 
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Because they already make good money from Lenses with built in IS and these have been available for a while before Sensor IS came about. Since they can get away with it they will keep charging for it in lens making more money. There is simply no other reason. No body is going to go over to Pentax/Sony and be able to keep the same lens availability and quality so Nikon/Canon know that they can keep milking us and we will pay.

Also:

woof woof said:
one day mirrors will be no more and we'll have electronic viewfinders
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I'd be interested to hear more on this. When do you guys for see this happening? A few years away? Next decade? What is the benefit of mirrorless? How will that work? What benefit does it bring other than it won't wear out or make noise?
 
One benefit of mirrorless will be lack of mirror slap and associated noise. A camera without the mirror box could also possibly be more compact. Sealing might be better too and there could be an end to creepy crawlies in the viewfinder.

I suppose that the frame rate could be a lot higher too, and there would possibly be less or possibly no viewfinder blackout.

As to when, dunno, but I personally think it's only a matter of time.
 
In body can compensate for rotational vibration too - see the auto levelling feature on the k7 and k5.
 
One problem with electronic viewfinders is battery consumption, because the viewfinder has to be powered all the time you're using it. If it switches off to save battery power then you have to switch it back on to use the camera, and this can quickly become an irritation.

This was the problem I had with my briefly owned Sony A33. It was a nice camera in many ways, but the rapidly depleting battery power, and the way the viewfinder blanked out from time to time spoilt it for me.
 
woof woof said:
People update firmware all the time and camera body firmware wouldn't be a problem if the info could be built into the lens.
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You obviously don't do software development for consumer electronics ;). Once a product is superceded, support for it tails off quite quickly. I'd be really annoyed if, for instance, I had an old camera that couldn't benefit from the macro IS of the 100mmL (probably next lens purchase).
 
woof woof said:
I think you missed my point about fast lenses. I have several and as far as I know none are available with IS.
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I would think the design challenges of IS for fast lenses is huge....
 
clicktor said:
<snip>

I'd be interested to hear more on this. When do you guys for see this happening? A few years away? Next decade? What is the benefit of mirrorless? How will that work? What benefit does it bring other than it won't wear out or make noise?
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Referring to mirror-less 'DSLR' cameras, they're already here - and selling in very large quantities. The so-called MILC or EVILs - mirror-less interchangeable lens camera, or electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens - but with a big sensor, 4/3rds or APS-C. Compacts have been like this for ages of course, and there's a younger generation of photographers that has never used an optical viewfinder of any sort.

Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Olympus. Big advantages in size, weight and (in theory) cost. Also lens design is much easier. It's the next big thing.

I think the best way to do stabilisation is not with the lens or the sensor, but to shift the image digitally. Some video cameras do this though it doesn't seem to work as well at the moment.

arad85 said:
I would think the design challenges of IS for fast lenses is huge....
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Yes, I think that's the problem. Those big chunks of glass are hard to move. There are also arguments that suggest stabilisation is not necessary at very low f/numbers, some of which I think hold water and some not, but also the kind of person that buys those lenses tends to a be a bit of purist and would be reluctant to put up with anything that was less than perfect. F/2.8 seem to be the practical limit for in-lens stabilisation at the moment. I can only think of the Canon 200L f/2 IS that goes further and that's £5k, and the similar spec Nikon.
 
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arad85 said:
You obviously don't do software development for consumer electronics ;). Once a product is superceded, support for it tails off quite quickly. I'd be really annoyed if, for instance, I had an old camera that couldn't benefit from the macro IS of the 100mmL (probably next lens purchase).
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Sooner or later the world, technology and even cameras moves on.

BTW. I spent 30 years working in computing, wider electronics and technology manufacturing and can probably think of more than one way around the issue.

Where there's a will there's a way... the question with Canon and Nikon is is there a will or will they be last to impliment in body IS, kicking and screaming?
 
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I'm still struggling with the need for is with shorter focal lengths. I can perhaps understand ad hoc landscape shots, although I'd prefer the stabilisation a tripod gives. Maybe staged portraits? But certainly not to capture anything that's moving as the shutter speed would be too slow to control motion blur.
 
My old Fuji s3500 had an electronic viewfinder, I hated it. Made focusing difficult. I've not seen much of an improvement with modern evf's tbh.

Give me an optical viewfinder any day. Id rather be limited to the resolution of my mk1 eyeball than a grid of pixels thanks.
 
Faldrax said:
From a design standpoint, the way round this is to hold the stabilisation parameters in the lens rom - just like the other lens data the camera uses. You would also need a 'default' set in the body for any (older) lenses which did not have this data.
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a-mount lenses have this information in the lens "chip" so SSS (Sony's body stabilisation) can work. That's why all autofocus Minolta lenses back to 1985 are stabilised on Sony bodies. It's also why old M42 lenses can be stabilised with a chipped adapter containing the correct lens focal length information.

Later Konica Minolta 'D' lenses and all Sony lenses have more contact pins so greater information could be communicated, for example the focal length currently in use on zooms.
 
This stabilisation issue is a big deal for me, and I'd imagine a fair few others as well. Sony and Pentax DSLRs are priced perfectly competitively against Nikon and Canon, and because of the stabilisation, I'm seriously considering going for an a580/k7/k5/a850 rather than buying glass for my Dad's Nikon.

The stabilisation on shorter lenses has many uses.
Portraits (perhaps not all candids, but most, and it'd hardly hurt)
Landscapes/Architecture
Low light (rather than be forced into using huge apertures or ISO)
Video (There is the heat issue, of course)
 
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